Prediction of wear in dumper truck body by coupling SPH-FEM

Abstract Abrasive wear is largely involved in many industries processes, and can cause serious problems and economic loss. A number of theoretical models and numerical models have been established to study wear phenomena. However, simulation and prediction of wear at large scale are seldom presented. Sliding abrasive wear of steel plates from interaction with granular material is here studied with numerical simulations. Abrasive wear of unloading of two different dumper body geometries are studied with the smoothed particle hydrodynamics method coupled to the finite element method. These numerical tools are of interest as they can reproduce interaction between solid and granular material. Wear pattern on the dumper bodies obtained from numerical simulation shows a reasonably good correspondence to experimental measurements. An advanced analysis tool that takes into account both the actual material flows, coupled with wear calculation model would be a new tool to design and optimise handling equipment against wear.